Speaker 1: Live.
Speaker 2: This is Pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets.
Speaker 3: Hello eline friends, Welcome to catam Chud. I'm your show
host Michelle Burn. Today we're going to talk about something
I've never heard of in cats, but it's apparently something
important we had. This show is dedicated to Aaron and
her cat Rosebud. She wrote in asking about mega colin,
and we're going to learn all about it with a
special guest. So stay tuned, we'll be right back.
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Speaker 5: Let's talk bets on Petlife Radio dot com.
Speaker 3: Welcome back everyone. I'd like to welcome doctor Jeff. He's phenomenal.
He is an amazing veternarian, amazing person. He's one of
our show hosts and a dear friend. Thank you doctor
Jeff so much for coming on Catitude.
Speaker 1: Well, Michelle, thanks for having me. I think it's great.
I love to educate people about their pets, and if
there's anything we can do that gives them a little
more information, then I feel like a winner.
Speaker 3: So I didn't know what mega colon was at all,
and so I did a little educating and I mean,
you know, from the name, it sounds like something to
do with a large colon, but it's a fairly serious condition.
And then I thought a little bit more about is
it just a temporary does it just occurring cats at times?
And you know, any ailment with cats is always interesting
because there's still a creatures and you have to really
dig to find out information. So what exactly is mega colon?
Besides I mean, it sounds like large coalon, but what
is it so exactly.
Speaker 1: That it is a large colon? And the question is why?
So what happened is there is a normal mechanism of
passing food and ingesta through the intestine. It's called peristalsis,
and that is there. It comes in waves. You have
circular muscles and longitudinal muscles and they sort of work
and communicate with each other. So you have a longitudinal
muscle will propel something forward and the circular muscle will
make it smaller and then keeps It's like a snake
moving through, so it keeps the things from the stomach,
the ingesta it's going through, and each stop is being
absorption through the intestine, et cetera. Then finally we get
a number of aspects. You have the duodenum, which is
the opening the first part of the small intestine goes
in to the juenum, which is the longest part. Then
you have the ilium, and then you have those called
the ilio sicco colic junction, and that takes the food
the ingesta from the ilium into the colon. Colon has
almost three sections. It has what's called an ascending colon,
it's going up. Then you have a transverse colon. The
acending colon is on the right side. Transverse moves it
over to the left. And then you have the descending colon,
which is that last spot. And that's the part that
seems to be most affected by megacolon, and that is
the colon loses its ability to appel the ingesta. So
at this point the stool is sitting in the descending colon.
It's not being moved. But what's happening to the stool
is one of the jobs of the colon is to
resorb that last amount of fluid in the ingesta, to
make it firm and like normal poop, normal stool. Well,
the longer it's sitting there, the longer it there is
going to resorb any fluid. And now the stool gets
rock hard and solid, and there's no way it's going
to get moved. So now the colon is getting bigger
and bigger, it's getting filled up with no ability to
move propel that stool outside into the rectum. So what
happens is the muscular gets worse and worse. It starts
as a small problem and that small problem becomes a
big problem. So and therefore treatment is going to be
predicated on how can we fix this problem of full stool,
very hard stool, and very little muscular activity of the colon.
Speaker 3: Wow, So what causes this?
Speaker 1: Now, there's really no known cause. It just happens. We
see it more in cats than dogs. We see it
usually an older cats, and it could be age related.
There's no necessarily now, if there was a one point surgery,
we always try to avoid surgery of the colon because
the feeling is normally, if you're, for example, removing a
foreign body from an animal's intestine, once you know it's
in the colonys say it is that once it's in
the colon, it's going out. Say don't cut into a
colon unless you have to. So no one really knows.
Is there a particular thing that causes it a dietary problem.
Maybe there's not a fiber in the diet, But the
bottom line is that there's no known real cause that
we know of that we can say, Okay, if you
do this, it will prevent it. So we don't know
what this is.
Speaker 3: We said no fiber in the diet, could trends like
raw diets, and a lot of people are against kibble
adding kibble as could that lead.
Speaker 1: Towards we In general, cats are, as we know, obligatet carnivores, right,
they don't really typically need to have a lot of
fiber in their diet. But if they have one such
cat that seems to have this problem, then it might
be wise and we could talk about treatment, because there
are a number of treatment options. But then it might
be wise to add some fiber to the diet.
Speaker 3: Okay, before we talk about treatment, what are some symptoms.
Speaker 1: The symptoms are cats that are going to the litter
box a lot, trying to defecate, assuming that squatting position,
and sometimes vocalizing. Interestingly, it's almost the same symptoms as
a male cat that's blocked who can't pee. They go
into the box, they're vocalizing. They know they have that
little stone or something in the wureth rut and it's
the same type of behavior because they're trying. They're trying,
it's hurting them. But then you take an X ray
or you all all we have to do is veterinarians
is palpit the abdomen and oh my god, you're look
at an X ray. It feels like, boy, a horse
would be jealous. I mean, there's so much poop in there.
You just can't believe it. And it's just backing up.
Speaker 3: Well, when you said like male cats with like crystals
in the urn, Dennis, they actually he had a different meal,
like a different sounds, you know, like in pain. But
it didn't happen until again the stoic creatures with cats,
I was not aware of it, right right, And then
finally we took him to the doctor. One place wanted
to put him down, and now it was like this
crazy one to the other. There was the that wasn't
open once. The next day they did the surgery. They
kept them an extra day, entertained all of them. Dennis
is very you know, main coon cattish. Yeah, his symptoms.
I can just imagine how.
Speaker 1: I eat it. So they have to prove that they can't. Yeah, drying,
they keep drying, but they can't.
Speaker 3: We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back.
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Speaker 5: Let's talk past.
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Speaker 7: Talk about Life Radio Headline Radio.
Speaker 8: At Life radio dot com.
Speaker 3: Welcome back everyone. We're talking to doctor Jeff when we're
talking about mega colon. Now, Aaron, one of our listeners,
had wrote in she unfortunately her cat Rosebud has this ailment.
And so we're talking about mega colon with doctor Jeff's
so we can understand it better. Doctor Jeff, does mega
colon before we talk about treatments? Does it get confused
with anything else, any other type of ailment?
Speaker 1: Well, the only thing I can get we can confuse
it with is I said, mega colon can happen male
or female cats. Female cats don't typically blow urinary track wise,
but males do. So the idea of going to a
litter box frequently, staying there longer than normal, trying to
push something out again, you can't always tell whether it's
going to be the feces or whether it's going to
be urine. And if it's over it's a male, you
don't know, but it's that and you'll usually hear a
vocalization which could either be reminiscent of pain or frustration.
You don't know, but you know it's not normal. And
with any of that, it's time to take your cat
into your veterinarian and have him or are evaluated.
Speaker 3: Okay, So what would you expect to hear from your veterinarian.
I mean, as you've talked about those three different phases,
it could be like beginning phase, and it could be
middle and then could be you know, like a full
stomach like you'd mentioned.
Speaker 1: Right, So the treatments vary so much. First one we
have to think about a I usually start with an enema.
You got to get that stuff out of there because
it's so uncomfortable for the cat. Prokinetics proconetics are drugs
that are like sissypride, and those are drugs that seem
to increase the motility, the muscular activity in the colon
to again try to push things out. We also talk
about stool softeners, things like lactulose or miural acts, which
is something you can get over the counter. It's added
fiber and it just again to soften the stool as
it's going through the intestine to make it more comfortable
for the cat. And then again, first thing I gotta
do is relieve this poor cats discomfort and pain. So
I'll do an enema, sometimes going digitally, and we'll try
to literally scoop out while I'm compressing. And this has
to be sometimes done with anethes of course that I'm
pushing the value I'm trying to I'm trying to do
what the colon can't do, and that's propel the ingesta out.
So I'm pushing it and as I'm pushing it, we're
using you know, with our digitally and just you not
believe some of the size of the stool, the feces
that I've now of a cat, As I said, the
horse would be jealous. I mean, it's it's huge. And
you said, how did this poor cat survive this? How
is it not just going nuts? So anyway, so short
term it's let's get them on prokinetics, let's get them
on stool softeners, and then longer term then that's where
we think about. Okay, now that we know this is
a problem with the cat, this is where I mentioned,
you know, dietary change, getting a more high fiber diet
and that helps control bowel movements. Now, in really bad cases,
we may have to do something that I have never done.
I haven't had to fortunately, and if I did, I
would not do it. I would send it to a
board certified veterinate surgeon. And that's called a collectomy where
you have to literally cut into part of the colon
and medical management didn't work and you have to unload.
You have to get rid of this stuff. As I said,
I'm not a big fan of cutting into a colon.
I don't do it. I think there are potential dangers
with scarring after this surgery, et cetera. And it's usually
recommended not to if you don't have to, but sometimes
you may have to. So that's you know, that's the issue.
And then you know again some of you want to
work with veterinarian but you know, again, the keys are
getting rid of what's in there now, and that might
require sedation and a good enema and literally digitally removing
the feces out of the colon, doing some sissapride or
some sort of prokinetic which will get the colon moving,
a stool softener okay, and then ultimately adding fiber to
the diet.
Speaker 3: What about fluids fluids.
Speaker 1: If the cat is dehydrated, then absolutely to give some
subju fluids or ivy fluids that just might help again
the body renormalize and maybe you can get some propelling
action from the colon just to the fact that they
feel better.
Speaker 3: Okay, thanks, This is so informed of In my research online,
I read a lot and there's a lot of talk
about relax. What about pat parent thinking their cat probably
has mega col and maybe you know, it feels a
little stomach, feels a little large or whatever and are
hard and they decide, well, let me give a little
mirrorlax to my cat. I mean, is that something you
could try?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's not going to hurt. I talk to your
veterinarian first, just about the dough based on the weight
of your cat or lactuloaks, which is also one that
I recommend. And the idea is if you want to
try it, it shouldn't hurt, but you don't want to
give too much and see if that will help. You know,
sometimes unfortunately when it gets to the point of almost
causing a blockage, it's almost too late for that. But
if you can try it and if it works, great.
I found that what I try to do is when
it's really bad. First step I do is try to
clean out the colon because once that firm, hard stool
is formed, you can't soften it once it's already there.
So the whole idea is to keep the stool soft
as it's passing through the colon and the system pride
the prokinetic, we'll keep the muscular activity there. Then I
think it's going to be more effective.
Speaker 3: And once your cat has treatment, it seems like it
needs to be ongoing. Correct, correct, So can you expect
problems problematic from time to time? Do you need to
watch the cat's stool?
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I've had cats that have come in almost on
an every other week basis for an enema. That colon
is just not it's not working and the stuff doesn't work,
and the set news is that everything else is fine.
So what are you gonna say no to the cat?
You're gonna you're gonna be not gonna put them to sleep.
So we just go in, We do an enema. We
get it earlier now, so it's not we don't have
to knock them out. We just give the anima helps them.
We can just palpate and smoothly push push, everything out
and they do they do really well.
Speaker 7: Only once a week. Yep, yeah, so it could store
that much store. But again you still keep your prokinetics
and and try to keep the stools off if you
keep the stool really soft, almost like diarrhea, right, not watery,
a cow patty ish we call that different consistencies.
Speaker 1: All right. I know it sounds gross for a bros.
Speaker 3: But you know, poop is a thing that we have
to look at it.
Speaker 1: Right, So you can have it like it's squirts, we
call it that's really watery, or you can have cow patty,
which is like soft serve and okay, what do you say?
This is what we talk about now.
Speaker 3: It's and you know, as for pet parents.
Speaker 1: We have to look at the poop.
Speaker 3: We have to pay box to see what's going on.
They don't really tell us these things. You know, what
about cat pet parents that are listening out there that thinking, well,
if whatever happens, I'm good with my cat. My cat's
called Can a pet parent give a cat an enema?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah. I think what they should do
is there are animals, you know, made they're coming with
a long nozzle made for cats and dogs. It comes
almost like a syringe. All I recommend is it's almost
like teaching a client how to clean ears, or teaching
a client how to give shot for insulin. If the
cat's a pets, a diabetic or a lot of times
people will buy adequin for our joints and teach them
how to give shots. It's really not that difficult. They
just should should be shown how to do it. So
I recommend if you, if your cat is having this
problem and may need routine animals, go in, have your
doctor or your nurse, the veteran nurse show you how
to do it the proper way, and it's something easy
to learn.
Speaker 3: Okay, what if your vet doesn't want to show you
how to do it, which you should know how because
it ever happens over a holiday or something, it needs.
Speaker 1: To do it, I can't imagine, you know. Again, I
don't want to get it.
Speaker 3: Rather have you come visit them. You know, my philosophy
is very different, but some veterinarians will. I'd rather have
you come in and.
Speaker 1: Write, of course, and that's fine, but for something that
can be taught, and the veterinarians don't want to do it,
and I'll be how crude can I be I'm going
to say it's time to find another vet.
Speaker 3: That's what I was thinking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just don't understand it. What do you care
more about? Are you more interested in the pets welfare
or more interested in the money. Okay, Now, if the
vet said, look, I'm not going to charge you, I
just feel more comfortable. I think one of my technicians
do it. I'll show you how to do it in
case you're stuck on a weekend, but otherwise, I just
you know, there can be some then that's fine, that's fine.
But if they say no, you have to come in,
we're gonna charge you for it, then you're looking at
a vet whose mind is not necessarily just on the
pets welfare. And I don't like that.
Speaker 3: Glad to hear it. We went into that from time
to time. I myself have switched vets. I had a
vet once that it was my dog when mister Zees,
when he was still alive, obviously, and the vet complained
about hair. She had hair on herself, logstand it on herself,
and she just looked and complained, and I thought, all right,
I'm out of there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, no no, I come home full of hair
and a people even say it. Oh my god, I'm
so sorry, I said, you think I really care. I
do this for a living. I go home, My dogs
think I'm cheating on it. But you know, it is
what it.
Speaker 3: Is, one of those things, right. So final in closing,
what would you have to say to a cat parent
who's just gotten the diagnosis that their cat has mega
colon and is maybe just just so worried about it.
How are they going to do the ongoing care? Is
it going to be you know, shortened the cat's lifespan,
or you know they're just anxious a matter? What would
you tell them?
Speaker 1: I would say that in most cases it is a
manageable condition. It may not be curable, but certainly manageable.
Some need more management than others. And don't fret, not yet,
Let's try these things work with your veterinarian. The worst
scenarios you have to give enemies on your own, which
isn't so terrible. And the even you even learn how
to palp pay the cat, and these you could see
was it? When's it getting really bad? And these are
things that can be taught. And if you are queasy
about it, that's okay. Just routinely I had a client
that had an old, old Yorki. She was a Yorkie
rescue and she didn't feel comfortable giving She's given sub
to flues before, but this dog was so frail she
wasn't comfortable doing it. And she came in every day
all right. For subcu fluids we charged a whopping ten
dollars and mostly just for the tech time and Doug
live for God God. Actually a year and a half
we finally put it to sleep or died at almost seventeen. Wow.
As I said, not usually not curable, but certainly manageable.
Speaker 3: Well, and then thank you so much. Let's tell listeners
where they can find out more about you and about
your live show.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm doing here right here, a pet Life Radio.
I am on every Sunday morning nine in the West
and noon in the East and wherever in between. It's
Ask the Vest with Doctor Jeff and I also do
that along with my Instagram live so IG Live, and
I am Verbs. That's my nickname since I'm like literally
a kid in camp Verbs Underscore DVM and you can
find me on Instagram. I'd love to have you follow.
You can also get a hold of me pretty much
anytime and Also, I am chief veteran Officer at Airvet,
were the largest pet telemedicine platform in the United States,
and you have access to a veterinarian literally twenty four
to seven. Within one to two minutes, you're going to
be live, so you might want to download that. It's
an app and it's called air Vet and you can
always get me here at doctor Jeff at petlife radio
dot com.
Speaker 3: Doctor Jeff, thank you so much for coming Onlatitude.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, and I hope your listeners are
feel comfortable joining my show on a Sunday or just
at pet Life Radio. Doctor Jeff at pet Life Radio.
If you have questions you're not really getting satisfied with
your answers from your veterinarian, please reach out to me.
Just let me know your work with Michelle and I'll
be happy to help you well.
Speaker 3: I hope you all enjoyed our show. I want to
give it thanks to doctor Jeff. Thank you so much
for coming on Platitude and telling us all about Mega Colon.
I know my listening audience is much more informed than
they ever were, so thank you so much. Thank you
for listening to Catitude. I greatly appreciate your loyalty. Thanks
to my cat crew Dennis, Molly and Charlotte patiently listen
to me and let me rub their bellies, and I'm
grateful that they do not have mega colon and hope
they stay that way. My thoughts and prayers and hopes
and wishes for Aaron and Rosebud. Listeners to Cutitude that
wrote in to ask about mega colon Erin, I hope
you're able to take good care of Rosebud and she
is able to, you know, function as best she can
with her condition. And of course, thank you so much too,
my producer Mark Linter for working as magic and making
each episode sound amazing. And remember Lise's attitude. Have Caatitude.
Speaker 5: Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only on petlive
radio dot com